A lot of things went through my mind at that very moment. I could comply. Try to explain myself. Get brought in. Held for questioning or whatever—let them piss away my twenty-four hours of triple the experience points gained from, well, killing things. Getting stronger at thrice the speed.
They would get in my way by doing so—they would get in my way irreparably.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I wondered if I’d be forced to explain myself to them after ending their lives—if I used the thing I used on Randall. What was it called again, the [Ferryman] skill—
The world turned white.
“What the—what the fuck?” I heard someone whisper behind me. I turned around and saw him—a guy wearing a black hoodie, black pants, and a blue ski-mask. He ripped the mask off and stared at me. “You—you fucking shot me! You fucking killed me, cuh!”
I blinked. Right. “You’re Randall’s friend, right?”
His eyes widened and he pointed at me accusingly, “You—you killed Randall! I saw his body—he was—you fucking killed my bro!”
Jesus, what a whiplash. Uh, “Yes, I did,” I said, walking up to him, but carefully not intending on manipulating him ‘physically’ in any way so the rules of this reality wouldn’t lock me into place. “In my defense—the guy held me up at gunpoint and tried to rob me. That was the choice he made, and now he’s dead. Same with you—you made your choices in life, and now you’ve faced the consequences. It’s—it’s math, basically. One plus one is two. All things add up eventually. All things follow from other things. Like a river flowing—you get me?”
He furrowed his eyebrows at me, “so—so I’m dead now.”
I nodded, “yah—pretty much. But hey, look—I don’t know what’s waiting for you, but it ain’t hell, okay? Hell’s not real, so you can just go on ahead into that black hole over there,” I pointed at it, “And it’ll take you to the next step.”
He frowned at me, “why are you here, though?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why was he taking so long? Was I dead already? How did I look like in the normal world, anyway? Locked in place, unmoving? The cops would light my ass up if I was l just standing around like that.
I’d be dead already.
I might be dead right now.
I chuckled. Fuck. Well, sucks to suck, if that was the case. But… I had made my choice to stand my ground. I wasn’t going to regret that just because it hadn’t gone my way.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, “I’m… your ferryman, I suppose. S’pose to take you to the next step. And in return, you leave me a little something, I guess. Don’t know what, though. Your… resentment, probably.”
“Resentment,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” I said, “So you can take the next step with a light heart or some shit.”
He glared at me, “Fine. Take it. Take it all. And let me fucking go. I ain’t tryna hear all this shit anyway. Fuck you think I am?” He cursed more under his breath, sending me a withering glare all the while. How old was this kid anyway? Couldn’t have been older than fifteen or something. He was scared, but hiding it admirably behind a mask of irritation. I could respect a coping mechanism that didn’t leave you vulnerable.
“Be my guest, brother.” I spread my arms, “Alright—shoot me your resentment—” I felt a sudden stab of vicious anger and hatred. I blinked.
Holy shit.
The guy took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before nodding. Then… he gave me a nod. “Appreciate it, brother. You killed me, but… appreciate it, man. So—that hole over there, right?”
I nodded. “Yes… that’s… right.” I took a breath and exhaled the sudden bit of emotional turmoil. That was… a little gnarly.
He walked into the darkness.
An instant later, another blue-masked fucking idiot spawned. “What the—fuck, what—you shot me? Where am I? You—I’m dead?”
I clenched my jaw. Goddammit.
000
After the sixth, and final soul departed through the black hole, I was once again released into the living world, feeling unaccountably raw, vulnerable, angry, sad, accusatory. Towards myself partially, but also towards society in general.
No wonder those fucking degenerates turned to crime when they were feeling this way all the time—my only surprise was that they hadn’t taken their own damn lives yet. Jesus Christ.
“DROP YOUR WEAPON!”
I raised both guns and shot the cops in the head. At the same time. Damn, this Dexterity wasn’t playing.
So, lesson learned—[Ferryman] stopped—
The world turned white.
I blinked emphatically.
Okay—the [Ferryman] skill stopped time! That was the lesson. Convenient, at least.
“You—!” The cop ahead of me, the one who had driven the car, stared at me in wide-eyed shock and disbelief. “You shot me!” He looked around, “What—I’m… I’m dead?”
They just say the same—“You guys all say the same shit! Whaat, you shot me, I’m dead! Fuck!”
“You—“
“Shut. UP!” I roared.
I paced around.
This… this was hard. To say the very least. [Ferryman] gave me the ability to alleviate the pain of departed souls—gave them a chance to pass on to the next step with less baggage, I guessed. Bully for them—fucking sucked for me. Randall had swallowed his own resentment, probably, or—I don’t know. All I knew was, he was shaping up to become my favorite Ferryman job.
No. Don’t—don’t do that, Charon.
All this—it is for a reason. Don’t start besmirching what little you are giving back to those you take from. Honor the dead.
I inhaled and nodded to myself. This was hard.
But I could handle it.
I looked at the cop, and bowed my head. “Listen—I’m sorry. I’m sorry about yelling. You didn’t deserve that. Just going through somethin’. I hope you can be understanding.”
His hands dropped to his sides as he just… gaped, staring emptily at the air. “I’m… dead,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I nodded, feeling a profound feeling in my chest at his words. This was quite an ending. A beautiful one in my opinion, even if it had been abrupt. But that was fine—death never waited for anyone to be ready. That was the beauty of it. The suddenness. I nodded at him. “This is your end. The great full stop.”
He glared at me, “Why?”
Why, indeed.
I shrugged, “Well—the why’s weird, but this isn’t about me. It’s about you and—”
“Why? You fucking psycho? Why?!”
I blinked at him. Psycho? I blinked in confusion at his words. Throwing rocks at a glass house, was he? “You held a gun towards me, you know. You were ready to kill me. How does that make me a psycho, that I was quicker on the draw?”
His eyes were wide, “You—you killed like half a dozen people! There were bodies everywhere!”
“Gangsters. Trying to kill me,” I said. “I was acting in self-defense, officer. You weren’t interested in hearing any of that, though.”
“When we aim our guns at you—you comply!” He pointed a finger at me sharply, accusingly. “You could have lived, goddammit, if you had just complied!” Could have lived? He was the dead guy here. He could have lived had he just not threatened my life.
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “No.”
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“No?”
I nodded, “You hit the nail right on the head there—and my answer is no. Not anymore.”
“The fuck?” he glared at me, “You—you don’t get to say no, you psycho!” He was really fond of that word, and yet we were practically cut from the same cloth.
Or did he just hate himself as much as he hated me?
“No,” I repeated, “In fact—no a million times. No, so much that I’d sooner kill you. Which I did. So, no. And it’ll continue to be no. Forever. That was why, the entire ‘why’ in fact—because no.”
No to all of it.
No because I can, now.
No, because the system promised me power unending.
And in power, there was freedom.
And that was why I loaded those guns, why I stuffed my pockets full of mags. Because no. No a million times.
“My name is Charon Freeman,” I said to him. “I’ve been… accused of being a victim of nominative determinism, more than once. I killed a lot of people, back in my service days. Started combat sports soon after, killed more people there. Not because I wanted to.” Then I frowned in contemplation. Was that… strictly true? “No, nevermind—I did want to. I’ve always been obsessed with endings, and death’s my favorite type of ending. Death with a reason, of course—not the senseless kind, but the kind that punctuates something beautifully. Like a fight for glory.” Ah, I was getting side-tracked there. “So. Charon. I guess, the ferryman. Your ferryman. You’re here because I am to take your resentment and allow you the ability to pass on, unburdened by said resentment. But—I am also Freeman. A free man.” I chuckled. “Boy, I never knew how much I truly valued freedom until now. I gotta say, this is baffling, even to me.” I slapped my forehead. Going so far as to kill cops over my desire to be utterly free from any authority—learned something new about myself today.
“Sorry you had to pay the price for my little soul searching. But… thank you, for giving me the answer to what I want the most in the world: I wish to be free. You wish to shackle me—and kill me if I don’t comply. And honestly, it doesn’t matter how right you are, or how evil I am, it really doesn’t. It’s just that our desires are incompatible. And so, you had to die. For my sake.”
“You fucking psycho!” He breathed, tears welling up in his eyes, “I had a wife! I had two kids! One of them’s barely out of kindergarten!”
“You and half the country, I guess,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What does any of that have to do with me? I have a mom. I have people who love me, too.” Or… person, really.
But she was all I needed.
“All you had to do was put down your gun, and we could have sorted this out,” he growled, “But they’ll never let you go now!”
I nodded. “Yup, yeah. I bet. Thankfully, I don’t plan to change my answer—it’s still no. I’ll just say no to the next guy who rolls up. Then the next guy. Or the next girl. Or the next person. Doesn’t mean shit to me—I’ll say no to all of you. Because I’m allowed to, now.”
To think that all that really stood in my way before was the threat of violence. And now that I was able to transcend over that threat by way of leveling up, it no longer held the same importance to me.
Everything I knew about political theory came back to me in that moment, and I realized—“This is a political power-struggle which you were caught in the middle of. A struggle between myself and this proud nation of states. A struggle I have every intention to come out on top of. A war for independence. But you, my friend, should be proud. You died for what you believed in. You died for your country. They will remember you as the first among many who will die for this relic of a country’s right to continue existing, in spite of the changes around us. As will I. Tell me. What is your name?”
He glared daggers at me, “Henry Blumenthal.”
“Well met, Blumenthal. And for whatever it’s worth—I’m sorry it had to be you, but I’m not sorry I did what I did. I never will be.”
“They’ll put you down like the dog you are.”
I nodded. “Hand over your resentment, Blumenthal. Once you do, you’ll be able to move on. And, perhaps, find it in yourself to forgive me—though I don’t strictly need that. Forgiveness is for oneself—resentment is a mind poison.” Or whatever it was the Buddha said.
I totally agreed. Resentment was a fool’s sport. Moving on, not letting things move you out of your way—therein lay true wisdom.
Henry Blumenthal took a deep inhale, and then exhaled, giving me all those nasty feelings that held him back from easily taking the next step.
It felt surreal, hating myself due to someone else’s emotions. Didn’t get easier by repetition. But it did get easier to set the feelings aside. As long as I didn’t experience them too intently, the resentment would simply diffuse into the air once its original holder moved on.
My theory was that the resentment needed to be held in some way, either by the dead soul, or the attending ferryman. And once the soul moved on, the resentment could be released without returning to its origin.
“I forgive you,” Blumenthal said with a nod. “I only hope that one day you may forgive yourself for this.”
I nodded at him, “I appreciate the sentiment.” Even if it didn’t really apply to me.
After Blumenthal left, Owen Scott, his partner, took his place.
A husband to a wife. A father to a kid. A person to another person. The inevitability of human existence was that everyone was a person to another person. I didn’t see what the big deal was. It was old news—the oldest news, in fact. All that mattered was his resentment, and his departure.
As repetitive as all this was—what I wouldn’t do was get mad at these souls after their death. Such a nasty way of comporting myself, my mother would be ashamed to learn of this. No. I was better than that.
For whatever reason, the system wanted me to do this job. I’d do it. And I’d do it well. But not for the system.
It was for something else. Something about this job agreed with me, almost fundamentally. I lived to exist in this halfway point between life and death. It was where I belonged.
The moment Scott left through the black hole and I returned to the normal world, I felt a dash of irritation at myself—I hadn’t asked him about the system yet. Either of them. Dammit.
I walked up to the cop cruiser and pilfered their magazines—thankfully, compatible with my guns. That was good.
Then, I got into the cop car’s driver seat, closed the door and sat there, ignoring the frantic chatter of the radio.
Then I debated on what to do, whether to run away or stick around, waiting for the next couple of cops.
Or, actually…
I summoned forth my personal screen. It popped up at the speed of thought, shocking me with its responsiveness. I had been ready to try out some code words or try to communicate with the system again, but I hadn’t even needed to do that much.
Name: Charon Freeman
Level: 1
Class: N/A
Titles:
- Natural-Born Killer – You were the first major organism in a newly inducted planet to kill another major organism.
"In the silence of a newborn world, you wrote the first chapter in blood. Before law, before mercy, there was only instinct—and you proved yours was sharper than any other."
Reward: +3 Strength, +30% Strength, 10% efficiency in Strength - Cain – You were the first person in a newly inducted planet to kill another person of the same species.
"You have etched your name in the oldest story, the first betrayal, the original sin of your kind. To be human is to kill—yet you were the first to embrace it."
Reward: All attributes gain 10% additional efficiency - The First Reaper – You have killed another creature within one second of planetary integration
"Before the world had time to breathe, you had already taken a life. Swifter than thought, faster than fate—your hands moved before the universe could even record your existence."
Reward: +3 Dexterity, +30% Dexterity, +10% additional efficiency in Dexterity, all attributes gain 20% additional efficiency
Attributes:
- Strength: 23 (18 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Dexterity: 24 (19 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Endurance: 16 [30% efficiency]
- Mind: 14 [30% efficiency]
- Power: 10 [30% efficiency]
- Temperance: 10 [30% efficiency]
Free Attribute Points: 2
Skills:
- [Ferryman – Level 4] – Ferry the souls of the deceased towards the next step, processing their resentment to make this journey simpler. For each successful soul ferried, a variable number of attribute points may be earned
Dammit. Still no level-ups. Worst part, I had no indication that using guns did anything, even. Annoying. Well, at least Ferryman had gone up in level—twice at that. Not sure what that really did for the skill. Not like I could ferry people better than I already was doing—
Wait.
Did I always have two Free Attribute Points?
No—I didn’t think so.
I focused on Strength, and the attribute popped out from the screen, the letters becoming larger than the others. To the left of Strength, a plus popped up, and I immediately intuited what that would do.
I didn’t press the plus.
Instead, I read through all the attributes and asked myself—which one was wisest to pick given my situation?
For the impending fire-fight, the choice was obvious. My aim hadn’t failed me yet, so more Dexterity would just be overkill.
But what I could definitely use was more bulletproofness.
I picked Endurance and dumped the two points into it.
Then I wondered—where had those points even come from?
Was it Ferryman?
…Dumbly, I read through the description, and my eyes widened. That was… yeah.
Yeah. Definitely had to take that job more seriously.
Don’t know how I had missed it the first time around.
I started the car and started driving towards the end of the street where the road swung to the left and the buildings formed a corner, with only a narrow alleyway through it. I judged that to be a good place as any to welcome the soon-to-be-departed souls of Oakland’s finest.
I parked the car so that it would form the ‘hypotenuse’, the buildings being the other two sides of the triangle. That way, there were only two roads to approach from, and I also had an eye on the windows on the buildings opposite to me. I could duck under the car if they decided to join in on the fun. The cop car had a shotgun and an AR on a rack inside the car, so I could use those in case small arms weren’t gonna cut it.
I nodded to myself. Yeah. All set.
I took my phone out from my pocket and texted my mom.
‘Hey mom, just wanted to let you know I’m fine—world’s gone crazy, but it is what it is. I’m adapting. Can’t talk right now, though. Just letting you know I’m fine. Would appreciate some word from you, too.’
I sent the text and pocketed my phone once again. Then it rumbled in my pocket. I slid it out and read mom’s response text from the lock screen.
‘I’m alright, honey. World has gone mad, yes, but it’s always important to adapt, okay? You’ll get through this honey. I love you.’
I grinned at the phone, feeling a swelling of love in my heart.
‘You too, mom. Love you, too’ I quickly texted. Then I put my phone into my pocket again as I heard the sirens approaching.
I prepared to meet my opponents, both guns in hand.